The Gift of a Thief
by Aria Illusine
Summary: AU ItaSaku “He called it a Gift,” Sakura said, a note of bitterness filling her voice, “But it’s really my curse." Caught when her curse forces her to break into the Uchiha house, she comes face to face with a patient who strikes her a bargain...
1. Caught

As of yet not officially beta'd by anyone, but with a few revisions to make for easier reading ^^ Hopefully I managed to clear away any lingering confusion over some of the more unfamiliar terms. If you're still not sure what's what, leave a review letting me know what you don't get and I'll be happy to oblige you!

Glossary list at the bottom of the chapter ^^

Summary: Sakura, cursed to steal from her patients in exchange for the power to perform healing miracles, is unexpectedly caught by a noble who sets her with an interesting proposition….

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine, it's Kishimoto's, and I took several ideas from a number of Tamora Pierce's books (all of the Tortall-verse) so don't sue the authoress please ^^;

And now, on with the story!

* * *

**Chapter 1: Caught**

"Ugh," the girl muttered to herself, disgusted as she assessed her situation. The results of her analysis were grim.

She'd been caught.

That was what goaded her most; her skills were nigh on being Konoha street legend. Tourists who visited the city got told of the Trickster's Cure, a mysterious visitation that happened to the ill and ailing wherein they were healed of illnesses that medics had deemed impossible to fix. As payment, some object of worth was stolen from them, with the thief god's emblem left in its place. She'd slipped in and out of nobles' townhouses, merchant keeps, the Assassin's Guild (she was really proud of that one), even the palace. That she'd gotten caught here was just plain humiliating. Especially since she'd already gotten in here once already.

_Damn Uchiha…_

She'd been stripped.

Not inappropriately. That had actually surprised her a little but apparently the lord employed guards who did their tasks without copping a feel like so many of the men she'd encountered in her day-to-day life. They had, however, done a very thorough search and found all of the tools of her trade, including her second _and_ third set of lock picks (she hadn't been able to smother the smug grin that had flitted across her face when one of the guards had whistled appreciatively upon the discovery of the last set), the wrist and ankle kunai, the various powders attached in pouches at her belt, and the senbon needles hidden in the hems of her outfit. Without them she was feeling more naked than if they _had_ stripped her bare.

She'd been locked up.

That last one was pretty annoying too. She'd been hauled off, after being discovered and subdued, to a cell like a common criminal! It hurt her pride almost as much as being caught at her work. At least the cell was clean and dry. She might have been tempted to put up more of a fuss if she'd been chained up in a dungeon. As it was, one of the guards was already nursing what would become an impressive shiner by morning, and another wasn't going to entertain anyone in his bed for a few days at least.

_Serves 'em right!_ She thought with a grim smirk, her thoughts slipping into the comfortable, unpolished street rats' cant she was accustomed to. _More'n a few of 'em will be nursin' hurts by the time I'm out._

But even her mental bravado couldn't keep the grin from sliding off her face. There was little chance of her getting out. She was the Trickster's Cure. Even if she argued with the man for justice – she _had_ healed in exchange for her filched trinkets – she had a pretty good idea that a thief would still be a thief to the city watch's Lord Provost, Hyuuga Hiashi. She would only have a Crown-issued criminal's death on Executioner's Hill to look forward to or, at best, exile from Konoha. An unpleasant prospect.

"Jiraiya was right," Sakura muttered to herself, unhappily slumping against the wall. "I've let myself get too dependent on my Gift." Her tutor in the master thief's trade would be furious when he found out she'd been relying on it to get her out of her stickier heists.

"Uuuugh," she groaned, already feeling boredom settling in. "If I can get outta this mess I'd gladly list'n to Jiraiya rantin'…"

* * *

Three hours later, the clanging of a door beyond her cell had her scrambling up, glad for anything, anything at all, to assuage her boredom. She didn't even care that the grim-faced guards were coming for her. Anything was better than the curst monotony she'd been suffering alone. The Gift made inaction nigh unbearable.

"Thank th' Trickster," she muttered as they hauled her out of the cell.

The guard on her left's lips twisted in a wry grin. "Save your breath, thief-girl," he said, eyes trained forward. "I doubt you'll want to thank the Trickster in a few. He's obviously not answering any of your prayers if you've gotten caught."

"Who says 'm not gettin' away later?" the girl grumbled rebelliously, but she shut up.

"We've brought her Lord Uchiha," the guardsman called out softly, rapping his knuckles against a hardwood door several minutes later. "Straight from the cells."

"Good, bring her in," a voice answered back, smooth and rich as a golden brandy.

Sakura, having been planning an escape during their trip here, was a little surprised to notice that she was now back in the same room she had been in the process of robbing when she'd been caught. She hadn't been paying much attention to their path because her plan had involved a window, several strips of fabric off her shirt, and one of her bootlaces. Both if the window had been a wide one.

"Hello, Trickster's Cure," her captor greeted her.

Hearing the title from his lips made her skin prickle with nervousness. She'd been hoping he would assume she was merely an average thief; she shouldn't have thought so considering she had healed him. But few people knew her as the Trickster's Cure other than her surrogate parents, Tsunade and Jiraiya. If she didn't get out of this alive, every one of them was going to be haunted by a seriously pissed off ghost

He caught the subtle change in her countenance with a gaze of bland curiosity.

Calling herself five kinds of stupid, she slipped on her nothing mask expression, shutting him off from her emotions as effectively as if she'd closed a door in his face.

"Hello, Lord Uchiha."

The Uchiha Lord raised a single eyebrow, dark eyes hooded. She had to hand it to him. His nothing mask was almost as good as hers. Even she was having a hard time reading him.

"So…the Trickster's Cure is a woman, not a myth," he said, slowly sauntering towards her, sable dressing gown draped loosely over his shoulders.

Sakura said nothing, aspen-leaf eyes drawing in the scene.

The room was elegantly furnished, as appropriate for a noble, especially a Lord. Her compulsion, her so called _Gift_, was making her fingers itch with the desire to take the delicately crafted lamp that cast the room in a golden light, the black-and-white marble chessboard by his bed, even the richly woven hangings that kept the winter's chill from seeping into the room through the stone walls. The desk looked as thought it got regular use; _the Lord is a scholar…interesting_, papers and books scattered messily over the surface. It was the only part of the room that wasn't scrupulously tidy.

_Damn…I must have healed him just after he'd fallen asleep. No wonder he woke up when I tried to filch…._

If she ever got out she'd remember to take better note of her surroundings. Considering the almost fastidious order in the room, she should have realized the untidy desk was a sign the Lord had been working late.

He stopped, merely five or so feet away, and she was finally forced to look at him.

He was a head taller than her, sleek and authoritative. She didn't need street gossip to know he was good with weaponry. His walk was both self-assured and predatory; dangerous to someone like her who lived by her wits.

_If my Lord Provost decides to retire, he'd find a good replacement in this man…_ her brain thought idly. She really was trying too hard not to think of what would happen to her now that he knew she was the infamous Trickster's Cure.

He was dressed casually; it said plainer than words that he saw her as no threat. At least not to bodily harm. The dark dressing gown hung across his shoulders, accenting his slender – but well muscled – frame. He wore only a loose pair of dark breeches underneath, no shirt. Her eyes skimmed down then up, following the exposed flesh from collarbones to navel and back, wariness swirling in their emerald depths. And, with a final wrench of nerves, she looked up into his face.

He was pale in the lamplight, with surprisingly fine-boned features. She shouldn't be surprised; he was a noble after all. But in spite of sharp cheekbones that lined his face, he had a firm, stubborn chin, full but serious lips, and deep obsidian eyes.

Her teeth caught her lips in an unconscious gesture. She was intimately familiar with those eyes of his. She'd been healing them four hours ago.

"Appraising me?" he asked, voice silky.

Her chin jerked up as she leveled him with a glare. There wasn't a point in playing dumb, especially since he knew her for who she was, and she wasn't about to let him jerk her around like that. She _hadn't_ been looking at him like something she'd hand over to a black market fence for coin.

His smile disappeared, but his eyes still gleamed with secret amusement.

Sakura's lips quirked in irritation.

"So…tell me about yourself," he said after a long silence. "Why do you do what you do? And how?"

"How d'you ask a healer how sh' does her work?" Sakura asked scornfully, speaking in street cant. "Y'wouldn't get it if'n you weren't a healer yourself."

"Most normal healers cannot heal the Assassin Guild's second-in-command of nerve damage that affected his entire left side, nor can they cure Lord Inuzuka of the Ashen Fever when he's on the brink of death," Itachi replied, the teasing note in his voice gone. "Don't be smart-tongued, girl. As your captor, I'd like some answers. An explanation on why I woke up to you standing over me in the dead of night to start with. And don't make me remind you that I control whether or not you end up on Executioner's Hill at the moment."

The girl's startling green eyes came up to glare furiously at him, but he saw the fear in them anyway though she tried to mask it. He didn't particularly care. Her glaring and angry was preferable to that emotionless mask he'd seen on her earlier.

"Th' hell, at leas' someone'll know why I did it," she muttered to herself, eyes flickering down before they trained back on him.

"I was born with my magic, for healing," she told him, fingers clenched behind her back as she stood, almost like she was reciting lessons, smiling in spite of herself when she noticed the surprise that blossomed on his face. "I wasn't always a street rat, milord. I can speak like an educated woman if I have to. Street cant's not strictly necessary."

"Cant?"

"Dialect," she answered, unclasping her hands to wave them in a "something like that" sort of gesture.

"Then why do you speak in this…street cant?" he asked curiously, a small frown marring the line of his brows as he rolled the unfamiliar phrase over his tongue.

_Almost like he's tryin' out the taste of it, _she thought with unbidden amusement as she shrugged in reply. "It's comfortable? But I figured it wasn't the best to tell my story in." Taking a clearing breath she continued, "I started out as a merchant's daughter. My family was thrilled when they learned I had the healing magic; it'd be a step up from trading for me. They even sent me to a Healers school near our house when I turned seven. And then the Trickster visited me."

Her green eyes grew pained, drawn inward as she remembered things that she would not speak of. "Don't believe me if you want, not many people are considered sane if they say the god of thieves has graced them with a visitation," she told him softly. "But he visited me all the same…and left me a Gift."

"A Gift?" Itachi asked, committing her words to memory. They would be interesting to peruse later; few individuals were gods-touched, even fewer by the Trickster. If he was going to hand her over to Lord Hiashi, he wanted to at least find out all he could about what had happened to her first. It was…interesting.

"He called it a Gift," Sakura said, a note of bitterness filling her voice, "But it's really my curse. In exchange for being able to heal people beyond what a normal healer is capable of, I need to steal something of value equal to the healing from my patient. He…sees the stealing as a sort of offering to himself. And the heal-and-steal is a compulsion. I can't control it."

Itachi raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious!" Sakura insisted, feeling heat rise into her cheeks at his obvious disbelief. "The larger the healing and the bigger the stolen object, the longer I have until I need to set out again. But no matter what I've healed, within three weeks I'm back on the lookout for someone new to work on." Her eyes grew dim, and he watched them carefully, noting how they were the only part of her that truly let on to her emotions. Even in what he assumed was her more "relaxed" guard; she still kept a tight rein on her feelings.

"My parents threw me out. No merchant family thrives when a member has a thief's compulsion. They couldn't keep me." She sucked in a breath, vaguely surprised at how the telling still stung a little after all the years. "And then my surrogate parents found me. Tsu-My mother," she corrected hastily, she wasn't letting some noble – even one who had captured her and could easily send her off to the Crown's prison – find out who had raised her in case he decided to hunt them up too, "picked up teaching me healing magic where the school tutors left off, and my father taught me the foist's trade."

"Foist?"

"Master thief," she explained. "It's street cant."

"I see," and another raised eyebrow was his only response.

"When I turned fifteen I left them for Konoha. I'd cleaned out most of the lords near our town and I refused to steal from the poor. I've been here ever since." She inched closer to the marble game board on her left, hoping Itachi wouldn't notice how she eyed the gem encrusted chess pieces. She was already feeling the shivering tremors start in her arms from refraining from stealing more than four hours after a healing.

_She's…shaking_, Itachi realized, watching her surreptitiously glance from his chessboard to his face and back. _Like some sort of withdrawal…_ The thought made him frown slightly. Now that he thought of it, she was exhibiting symptoms very much like withdrawal as she stood there, getting bolder and bolder as she eyed the game pieces. _Well then…_

He turned away, sighing as if he couldn't figure out whether or not to believe her story. In truth, he was rather confident of her honesty. His time spent researching the gods-touched, and studying the gods-touched prince of the realm, made her story…plausible. That she glowed in his sight within a golden corona of sparks, unlike every other individual he'd ever seen, even Prince Naruto, made him fairly convinced she wasn't lying. The fact that he was seeing a quiet seventeen-year-old with aspen-hued eyes and soft pink hair rather than a vague, indistinct blur made him certain. He'd been nearly blind when he'd gone to bed that night. Itachi turned back to face her once more.

Three of the chess pieces on the board were missing.

The girl was calmer and a tension he hadn't noticed before had left her shoulders.

_Ah…._

"I believe you, I think," he said, not letting on that he'd noticed the disappearance of his chess pieces. He could easily have them replaced or…. _That's not a bad idea…_ His brain whirred with consideration as ideas began surging through his thoughts. _Not…bad at all…._ "You healed me. I've been told countless times there was no way I wouldn't be blind within the year, yet here I can see you as I could have when I was a boy. So I only have one question." He speared her with an obsidian-eyed gaze. "Why pink hair? It's so vibrant I'm surprised you haven't been caught yet…."

Sakura jerked back, a thrill of fear racing down her spine. Had she forgotten to rub the soot and oil mixture into her hair tonight? It was supposed to disguise her rose-hued locks and dull their shine so that she wasn't easy to spot in the dark. Her hand flew to her hair; it was the usual greasy texture as it was when she was working. Emerald eyes narrowed.

"You don't see like most people do, do you," she said blandly.

"No, I see things as they are. I suppose to others you look…different."

Sakura said nothing. If he couldn't see the mixture smeared in her hair, she wasn't about to tell him any foist trade secrets.

"Well then, I suppose there's only the question of what to do with you left now," Itachi said.

An icy chill wrapped around her gut, but before she could do more than take a breath to argue her captivity, he pressed on.

"Let me make you a bargain. Work for me."

She stared at him, utterly flabbergasted, unable to string a coherent sentence together. Half-formed thoughts writhed in her brain, all variations of "What?!"

"I think you might have guessed but, I have magic that allows me to see things as they truly are. It's a trait that happens occasionally in the Uchiha family that is invaluable to the Crown but…there is a downside. My powers wear away at my eyesight, even more so if I'm actively using my powers to see through spells and divine the truth; it will continue to eat away at my eyesight until there is nothing left. And then the power will leave me. You healed me of twenty-three years of gradual blindness," Itachi told her plainly. "I want you to do that for me again when my eyesight grows worse…as it invariably will."

_Finally_ she found words.

"Why should I?" she snapped, surprising even herself at the sharpness of her tone. "You think because you have me captive I'd work for you like some hired mercenary?!"

"Perhaps."

Her anger flared.

"But I was hoping you could make a deal with me. My family's library is filled with books on magic, healing, curses, and even the gods-touched. Heal me and I will let you steal books from the family stores equivalent to your work. And I won't try to find out which ones you've taken. Half an hour _alone_ in my family's magics library for every healing."

Sakura paused, every muscle tense. The temptation was overpowering. The Uchiha libraries were famous for the knowledge they held; she'd debated stealing books from other Lords' houses and the palace when she had been in to heal there, but even the Crown library couldn't compare to the one held by the Uchihas as far as volumes on magic were concerned. The Uchihas had always been Konoha's greatest mage family, since before there even was a Crown to swear fealty to. The tantalizing promise that something in this man's library could help her break the Trickster's hold on her was too much.

"And you'll let me free?"

"As long as you give me a way to contact you when I need healing, you needn't set foot in here until then," Itachi promised. "My Lord Hyuuga may disagree with me, but as Trickster's Cure you trade healings for your thefts. In my opinion it is as good a sale as that of any other Healer. You merely take something other than coin for your fee."

Sakura felt her heart constrict strangely as she mulled over his offer for a few minutes, more for show than any real need to consider. She'd already agreed to the deal in her mind as soon as Itachi had made his offer. Pushing away the queer sensation that had left her chest feeling tight, she really couldn't be distracted while dealing with a noble, she leveled serious emerald eyes at the Lord.

"Done."

Itachi smiled thinly. "Now, tell me your name, girl. I can't be calling you girl every time we meet."

Sakura quirked her eyebrows, frowning at the way he ordered her. "Sakura," she told him, shrugging.

"You may call me Itachi. Now please put back my chess pieces."

"What do you mean…Lord Itachi?" she asked coyly. She wasn't about to admit to any theft.

"Put them back, Sakura," he told her silkily. "Or would you rather not take books as your prize for tonight's healing?"

With a clatter they were back on the game board.

"Thank you," the lord remarked wryly, and led the way to the library.

* * *

Foist: master thief

Gift: magical talent

Provost: Hyuuga Hiashi, the man whose job it is to head the ones who catch lawbreakers

Street cant: streetrat dialect

Please review! Any comments are always appreciated by myself and the ItaSaku muse ^^


	2. The Price Paid

This chapter's also unbeta'd; I really just wanted to finally post a second chapter to Gift and let everyone know that I've decided to make this a longer fic. Unfortunately, this means I'll have to put the status of this story as In-Progress T-T

For people who've been following the story already, I made a few changes to the first chapter so you might want to go back and read it again. Or not, it's really up to you ^^ Helpful term glossary appears at the end of this chapter too ^^

Also, Sweeter Than White Hot Chocolate has been rewritten to include the party scene I didn't have in before if you want to check it out =P

Disclaimer: let's just say the same stuff as chapter one's disclaimer applies here ^^

Hope no one thinks the characters are too OOC…ehehe I tried to keep them in character, really I did!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Price Paid**

"Is this your idea of a trick?" Sakura asked angrily, hating that she'd been stripped of her weapons. She had nothing on her that would give her an edge against the Uchiha Lord when she tried to make her escape from the deceitful man. The dark corridor in front of her seemed to suck away light like a malevolent force. "I'm not just walking into the darkness where you can knock me out and drag me back into a cell!"

The man's dark eyes slid towards her.

She jerked back with a start; they were nothing like the deep sable they had been when he had bargained with her in his bedchamber. The terror flooded her then, vulnerability in its wake, and she battled the hated emotions with every fiber in her being. But how in the world could she stop the icy chill from sliding down her spine when the eyes that speared her so dispassionately shone the color of fresh blood?

Itachi said nothing, giving the girl a few moments to get her emotions back under her control. As it was, he could clearly see the apprehension swirling in the aspen-leaf depths of her eyes, and was vaguely surprised to find that he didn't enjoy seeing it there. Having been raised as a boy who would eventually become one of the six Lords of the Realms Council that ruled the kingdom under the Crown, he was used to inciting intimidation in those around him. When the family had discovered that he had also inherited the Uchiha Gift of magesight, that apprehension had increased. They may have been proud of him but…

The family around him had been afraid of what he could see.

"I'm not planning on going back on my word," Itachi told her coolly. "I know the commoners think very little of a noble's word, but I always keep mine. That being said, I'm not careless, Sakura. I'm not about to lead the Trickster's Cure straight to my family's library."

Sakura narrowed her eyes in suspicion, letting a disbelieving expression curl her lips. "An' we're takin' with us no lamps because?" she asked, flicking a finger angrily at the intruding darkness, her pulse gently picking up speed as her eyes trained on the gloom before her.

"Do you always speak street cant when you're irritated?" he queried, brushing aside her question for the moment.

The noise that issued from her throat might have been a growl.

"No milord," she answered, tone bitingly acidic. _It's not irritation that's makin' me speak street now…._ "But you haven't explained our lack of lanterns yet."

The corners of Itachi's lips turned up in the ghost of a smile. "I doubt even a master…foist, can remain truly oriented in complete darkness. I, on the other hand, will have no problem leading us to the library."

"Because you have somehow memorized the path to your library in the pitch black?" she scorned.

"No, because I can see in the dark."

Itachi hadn't thought the already stationary girl could become any more motionless, but at his words everything about her had ground to a halt. Even the rise and fall of her chest had come to a standstill.

_No wonder she makes such a good thief,_ the intrigued Uchiha thought as his crimson-dipped eyes watched her. _Standing in shadow, even a skilled fighter or guardsman would have trouble spotting her._

"This is…your family's Gift again, isn't it," Sakura stated, the words only wanting confirmation for something she was certain she already knew.

_Quick wits too,_ Itachi thought, feeling an unexpected frown tug his brows. There had been too much of a feeling bordering on admiration in his last thought. "The magesight allows me the ability to see in the dark, yes," Itachi confirmed. "I will lead you to my family library and I have already given you my word that I will not lead you astray."

Rose-hued lips thinned with displeasure – Itachi was beginning to realize that when the girl wasn't intentionally manifesting an emotionless mask on her features, her feelings were actually quite close to the surface – and aspen-leaf eyes met crimson evenly.

The traitorous emotion of approval snaked another tendril through his thoughts.

This self-assured thief-girl was going to make a demand, and most likely one that Itachi would refuse to comply with. The feeling of being challenged, especially by this unexpected source, was surprisingly refreshing. Since too early on Itachi had had few who would outright dispute with him due to his magesight and rank as the Uchiha heir. His cousin, Shisui, and his younger brother, had been the only two who would range against him during any argument; that this slip of a girl five years younger than him would do the same was….

_Many things, not the least of which is amusing, _Itachi finished in his mind, pushing away any possible discomfiting thought that could have followed. He had a thief-girl to give attention to at hand, after all. One with an impossible request on her lips.

"I want my gear back."

Itachi raised an eyebrow.

"You should know full well that I cannot comply with that," he told her, still vaguely amused. "I will be leading you in the dark, something that will require contact. To have you armed at the time would be foolish of me. However," he added, stemming her arguments before she had a chance to voice them, "I will ask for one of my men to bring your things to the library door and you may take them with you when you depart. I believe that is more than fair."

Sakura was forced to agree, though she hardly wanted to. She had only asked for her belongings because the thought of following the Uchiha Lord through his mansion in the dark had set her nerves on edge. His word might prove to be trustworthy, but there was a sense of security that only a kunai in her hand could provide, and she hated to admit it but she needed it in this strange new situation she'd been so recently thrust into. But she refused to beg, so there would be no comforting fabric-wrapped metal grip resting in her palm for this ordeal.

"Now, come."

She bridled at the order, just as a warm hand closed over her wrist and she was pulled around a corner into true and utter darkness.

She couldn't see; eyes open or closed it made no difference in the inky corridor. The gloom surrounded her, blinding her utterly, and she cursed her greatest weakness in her unwanted calling as the Trickster's Cure.

She was terrified of the dark.

Her surrogate mother, Tsunade, had helped her channel healing to her already sharp eyes so that her night sight was much keener than most, but true darkness, complete and utter darkness like that which surrounded her now, used to leave her almost paralyzed. Careful training had almost eliminated that effect of her secret fear, but she was so much clumsier and timid when confronted with this kind of light-absorbing darkness.

The slight shift on the Uchiha's hand around her wrist jolted her back to reality.

Defiance stiffened her spine as she remembered just where she was. There was no way she would show weakness to this man. He already held too many cards in this little game they were playing, and she wasn't about to give him another one. Forcing back terror, she followed him, concentrating on her remaining senses.

The floor under her bare feet was cool, smooth wood. If she remembered from the lit corridor they had just exited, it was a varnished, amber-hued wood of fine grain; probably oak and made smoother by the travel of many feet. The air in the hall was warm for a late summer evening, especially since the pitch black walkway had no windows to let in the sun. A little ahead of her she could hear the young noble's steady, even breathing and the soft pad of their feet as they traversed the hallway. He was composed and relaxed, walking as confidently as if the corridor was brightly lit. She knew it was for her benefit that his pace was so sedate; he had slowed because she was, unlike him, blind in the dark. His hand, slightly callused from his weapons training, was warm against her bare wrist as he led them.

They calmed her, the touch and sound an anchor against her fears.

She was surprised when they halted.

For once terror had not made the walk take an agonizingly long time in her mind. She knew instinctively that they had only been walking for a quarter of an hour as the Uchiha had led her through a maze of corridors and stairs to his family's library.

Soft, golden light flooded her vision, blinding her momentarily before she could adjust her eyesight. They had arrived.

Soft lips parted in silent awe at the majesty of the tome-filled hall. Shelves upon shelves ranged throughout the chamber, filled with books in all sorts of bindings. From her vantage point at the doorway she had already spotted volumes bound in silk, leather, and even wood. To her left was a surprisingly cozy fireplace, surrounded by upholstered chairs in the Uchiha colors of navy, black, red, and white. To her right were a series of desks to study at. Beyond those were several doorways, each with a label over the lintel to mark the genre of books that lay beyond. From where she stood she could see History and Art with several other markers she couldn't yet make out. Several large windows, curtains drawn shut, lined the wall across from her.

"The family library," Itachi announced to her, rather unnecessarily. "The books are both recreational and scholarly; you may take as many volumes as is equal to your healing tonight."

Sakura, bathed in lamplight that soothed away the last hints of her earlier fear from her mind, turned clear emerald eyes on him. "You're very confident, Lord Itachi, that I won't steal more than what's due," she told him, a hint of archness in her tone.

"Research shows that those like you," he didn't use the term gods-touched – an individual marked by the favor, or displeasure, of a deity – they both knew that's what she was, "are governed by a strict balance. I am relatively certain you will not…overstep."

The eighteen-year-old nodded in understanding, turned to the library, and paused. "Lord Itachi, should you need to find me again, I believe you know a man named Akimichi Chouji?"

"The knight?"

The young man in question had been newly knighted several months ago, and was now under the employ of Itachi's fellow councilmember on the Realms Council, Lord Sarutobi Asuma. "Yes, I know him and I believe some of my men are familiar with him."

Sakura nodded; she had assumed as much. Chouji was easy to like once you got to know him, and his years in hard training for his shield had changed him much from the shy, big-boned boy her fence, Ino, had known in childhood. "If you tell him "bought and sold," he will take your message to a place where I will get it." Her verdant eyes gleamed with sharp wit as she added, "And please do not try to have him followed. Chouji has no notion of my true whereabouts."

The noble nodded, acknowledging the girl's canniness. He did not doubt that the man she had named was merely a stepping-stone in a chain for her to be contacted.

"I will notify someone to bring your things here, I trust your search will be as fruitful as can be hoped for," he said mildly, allowing her to step inside before he shut the door behind her and slid the lock into place.

* * *

Sakura threw a glance at the locked door behind her, amusement in her eyes. "Th' lord thinks mighty well of himself to lock me in his family's library," she murmured, a hint of a smile tucked in the corner of her lips. She supposed that after this night she wouldn't be able to throw him off so easily because, she had to admit, Uchiha Itachi was a quick study. But it'd ease her bruised ego if she slipped out of the Uchiha manor unnoticed.

_Think of it as repaying my hurt pride at being caught, my lord, _Sakura thought with a swift grin. Her eyes swept across the windows along the far wall as she approached them, a quick glance out of one confirming what she had already suspected. The library was situated at the back of the Uchiha compound, three floors up. The stone wall outside was smooth, a pretty good deterrent for most thieves. It'd be a hard climb even for her. But not impossible.

Escape route settled, Sakura turned back to the library, eyes calculating. The books she needed were here somewhere, but a quick turn of the chamber showed that the mage-selection was surprisingly scant. Still, she was hard pressed to believe that the lord had tricked her into agreeing upon access to a library that would not hold the tomes she needed. His bargain had seemed genuine and, truly, he needed it more than she did, in spite of her curse. She had been taught from her lessons, first as a healer at the Healers school and then with Tsunade, that losing their power to a mage gave him or her nothing to live for.

It was like throwing away a core essence of themselves. In short, by repairing Uchiha Itachi's eyesight, she had also lengthened his lifespan.

She wondered if he knew it, then shook her head at her own foolishness.

Of course he knew; the lord was a quick study after all.

"So…where do you keep your books on magic?" she mused, tracing a spiral pattern against one sturdy bookshelf.

Sakura hummed to herself quietly as she nibbled her lower lip, contemplating. "If I had built this library," she murmured to herself, working through the problem verbally as Tsunade had taught her, "I would probably hide the books on magework too. But…I'd probably also make it so that I'd be aware as soon as I walked into the room whether or not that particular part of the collection had been…ransacked by force."

"I mean," she amended, "I'm sure other Uchihas would have removed and added volumes to the collection from time to time so a weights-mechanism would be impractical in the long run. Barring something only someone with the Uchiha Gift could see…I'd put the books in plain sight or something close to it so I'd know if someone made off with a large amount of the magical tomes."

Her bare feet took her sauntering to the door that she'd entered from until her back rested against the cool, reinforced wood of the entrance. Green eyes sharp, she let her gaze sweep from one end of the library to the other and back. This would be a moment of pure instinct now. Her reckoning had brought her this far, but she didn't have the Uchiha gift for seeing what was really there. Her intuition would have to do the rest.

This was the part of thief work that couldn't be taught, the part that made her the legendary Trickster's Cure. This was something even Jiraiya couldn't have instructed her in. This was all her.

Emerald caught on one of the two doorways she could see from her current vantage point, one labeled Art, the other labeled _History._

"The Uchihas were the earliest mages in this region known in recorded _history,_" Sakura whispered to herself, a bubble of elation rising in her chest. She knew, even before she'd reached the room, that she'd found the right one with a rush that was nearly electrifying. From the doorway, in clear line of sight with the library entrance, was a neat shelf labeled Konoha. The way to the mage books would be there.

Her body quivered with the thrill of the search, her blood heady with adrenaline. Sensitive fingertips swept every inch of the bookshelf for a hidden mechanism that would reveal the magework section of the famed Uchiha library. Quelling her impatience – long minutes were being wasted in this particular search, time that could be spent perusing books if she could only find the mechanism switch – she patiently worked over the fine-grained mahogany of the shelves.

_There!_

The small panel, slightly rougher in texture than the rest, depressed into the back of the shelf. The floor underfoot rumbled ominously and Sakura took a wary step back, suppressing a gasp with a hand as she dumbfoundedly watched five identical shelves, all loaded with tomes and scrolls, rose up from the floor of the History room.

Outside, leaning back against the library's door, Itachi felt the tremor in the floorboards and quirked a single eyebrow in silent amusement. _The mage-girl's a pretty quick study to have found the hidden Uchiha folios already,_ he thought, not realizing that Sakura had described him in similar terms not a quarter of an hour ago.

Inside, Sakura was already skimming the titles on the first shelf as she calculated how much time there would be left before she could make her escape. She had to give herself at least five to seven minutes to scale the wall from whichever window she chose to disappear out of and exit the Uchiha grounds, and she had spent nearly fifteen minutes finding the hidden volumes on magical spellwork already. It only gave her five to ten minutes to make a selection of…three books, she estimated. That should about equal the healing she had done on the Uchiha lord's eyes.

Her fingers bumped against a leather-bound volume.

_Chakra Persuasion._

Magical essence, more widely known as chakra, was intimately tied to her curse as well as her being. This much she and Tsunade had gathered in the years of her apprenticeship. It seemed like a good place to start. Tugging the volume from the shelf, she checked her internal clock.

Three minutes until departure.

Making a hasty scan at the rest of the shelf, she promised herself she'd be back soon enough to do a thorough once-over of the books here, she slid two more volumes, _A History of the Gods-Touched_ and _Laws of Healing,_ from their places. A light touch to the hidden switch and the shelves sank into the floor once more.

"Now…how do I get these books out of here?"

She had already come to a rather sticky conclusion. She didn't even have her small satchel to store her finds in.

The fact that her pack was probably lying outside the locked door of the library was more than a little irksome, but she was still bent on escaping the grounds unnoticed, and she could always replace her gear.

"No one'd forget a bag but…" a large square of fabric caught her eye.

She really had to thank whoever made sure the library was kept scrupulously tidy. Someone of the Uchiha household staff had forgotten a large linen drape, most likely to keep dust off the tables or shelves during the cleaning process, which lay almost hidden in a crumpled heap in the shadow of one of the window curtains.

Quickly fashioning the cloth into a makeshift satchel, she tied the bundle to her back, then unlatched the window and pushed open the shutters. A cool night breeze ruffled her shoulder-length hair. The ground beckoned to her from three stories below.

"But," she murmured as her eyes caught a sturdy looking maple below, "I don't really have to scale all three stories."

Aspen-leaf eyes cast around for any last vestiges of her passage, the last thing she needed was to leave behind something that could be traced directly to her person, then she grasped the hem of her shirt, and deftly tore three long strips from the bottom.

Two went to wrap around her hands, the last pulling back her hair from her face.

"And so, my lord," her lips curved into a smile, "I believe this is goodbye."

She let herself drop from the windowsill.

* * *

"Hmm, I believe it has been half an hour already," the lord murmured to himself, pushing away from the wall.

The girl's pack lay abandoned on the floor, left where his runner had placed it.

Itachi had been somewhat apprehensive of leaving Sakura behind by herself in the library, but there would be no other way to fetch her gear if he stayed, so he had left a little while after she had discovered the mage books.

All was quiet now, and had been since his return.

Gently, he undid the lock and pulled the door open.

A soft breeze ruffled the strands of hair framing his face, coolness wrapping around him. The rustle of fabric reached his ears. The family library looked untouched, as if there hadn't been a young girl rifling through its secrets for the last half hour.

And it was empty.

The thief-mage was gone.

"I should have known," he muttered under his breath, irritation flooding his veins. His wide strides took him to the open window though he knew that when he reached it there would be no sign of her.

The empty grounds of the manor stared mockingly back at him.

_If you tell him "bought and sold," he will take your message to a place where I will get it_.

His lips curved in the hint of a smirk.

"Gone," he murmured to himself as he closed the window and drew back the curtain. "But not for good."

* * *

"Mmmm," it was good to be clean again, her hair damp but not oily any longer, and dressed in a clean shirt and breeches as opposed to the shredded bits she'd had left after using what she could to slip out of the lord's manor. Feeling relaxed for the first time since she had set out the evening before to fulfill her curse, she tossed herself onto the couch in her meager two-room apartment with a sigh of contentment.

It was early morning, the dawn still too faint to overcome the steady lamplight that filled her rooms. Normally she would sleep, catching the hours from false dawn until late morning to rest after her nighttime activities. But the books lying innocently wrapped in cloth beckoned, the draw of freedom too strong. Pushing herself up from the divan, she pulled them towards her.

Her weary mind ached in protest.

"No, I _have_ to look now," she demurred, channeling her mage's essence, her chakra, to her fingertips to massage away the pain from her temples. "I _have_ to…"

Her stomach rumbled.

Groaning, she let her forehead drop to the pages as she clutched her stomach. "Is everything set on keeping me from reading you?" she asked the book with a weary laugh. "First my head, now my stomach; I think after I eat I will find something else that needs my attention."

"Later then," she promised with a sigh as she put the book aside and rose to find herself something to eat. "After food…and a nap…I'll have time enough th-th," a yawn cut her off.

* * *

_The hallway was dark…at least if seemed that way to him. But, everything was dim in his vision again. Freedom from this blurry prison had been…brief. Two weeks it had lasted but…._

"_Itachi?"_

_The Lord of the Uchiha stilled; long years of being accustomed to near sightlessness had honed his ears. He could recognize voices with ease, and this one he knew well._

"_Shisui."_

_The older man stiffened, dark eyes sweeping over his younger cousin's form._

"_Itachi, those are the same clothes you were wearing when the king called you away yesterday. Are you just now returning?" he queried, stepping forward to meet his cousin._

"_It was important," Itachi replied shortly, his dimmed eyes following the sound of Shisui's voice. "Hopefully with this…."_

_His cousin caught him as he collapsed._

"_Itachi!"_

_Fighting the darkness that threaded through his mind, Itachi struggled to extricate himself from Shisui's grasp. "I am only tired," he insisted, pushing away the pain that seared itself through his temples. He fought the urge to press the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. He knew from experience that it did nothing to lessen the pressure. "The information I found is more important than my eyesight."_

"_You're an idiot, Itachi," Shisui replied, voice tight. "What good are you to the king, to anyone, if you go blind?"_

_The young lord's smile was tinted with wry resignation at the old argument. "Indeed, what good would I be?" he wondered as his thoughts began to wander under the onslaught of pain._

_His cousin's grip on his arms tightened. "Itachi?"_

"_On…the desk of my room," the Uchiha Lord said quietly, forcing himself not to sound as drained as he felt, "A letter, I need you to give it to the knight, Chouji…." He hung on to consciousness with the last of his strength until he felt his cousin nod._

_

* * *

_

_**Uchiha Mansion, the Lord's eyesight.**_

Sakura stiffened, a kunai appearing in her hand instinctively as she whirled around, even though she knew the room would remain pointedly empty. She had heard this particular voice only a handful of times before, and never so clearly as now, but she knew it in the marrow of her bones.

"Trickster," she bit out, slowly re-sheathing her kunai. "I'm to be takin' orders from y'lordship now?"

_**You should go to him.**_

"He's not sent for me," Sakura replied icily as she set about making a final round of her place to check the locks on the window shutters and douse her lamps. "Two weeks is too early for him to need me and," she snapped irritably, "If he needed me he would send for me. The silk merchant, Ebisu, will lose the leg he injured in the bandit ambush three days ago if I don't go to him soon; I am not to be at the Uchiha's beck and call always."

The Trickster gave no response.

Eyes narrowing, Sakura pulled a dark hood over her vibrant hair – it was too simple a job to be treating it with the soot and oil mixture – and made a last check of her gear. Her pack and lock picks were in place, all her weapons concealed. Her shirt and breeches were covered to the mid-thigh by a short, nondescript leather cloak. Soft kid boots and gloves finished her outfit.

"I choose my own marks," Sakura said at last, using the street cant term for a thief's target. Her verdant eyes swept the room once more in spite of the conspicuous silence on the part of the Trickster; with a grim shrug, Sakura pushed him from her mind and slipped out the door.

*****

"Ebisu's an easy mark," Sakura murmured to herself a couple of hours later as she weaved between the people crowding the marketplace, the weight of a gold inlaid flask settled comfortably in the purse at her hip. "But he's th' type to snitch to my Lord Provost Hyuuga when he finds his pretty gone," she added with a grin tinted with smugness as her fingers skimmed the flask's intricate surface.

Walking the midnight market was comforting; under the cloak Sakura looked no different than many other Konoha commoners out for nighttime shopping. This way, she could easily get her newest acquisition to her fence before anyone knew it was even missing from the merchant's desk drawer.

_Ino-pig will appreciate that,_ Sakura thought to herself, a slight grin tugging her lips as she finally neared her destination.

Jasmine Pawn Shop was pretty well to do as far as such establishments went, the Yamanaka family a scrupulously law-abiding bunch to general knowledge. Very few were privy to the fact that they actually had strong ties to the young man who controlled Konoha's entire black market from the shadows. It was perhaps why their shop, of all the midnight market's pawning establishments, was never disturbed. Like a blanket of subconscious knowledge, even the seediest characters kept peace within Jasmine Shop's walls.

Sakura easily became one with the night shadows, ignoring the shop's front entrance in favor of the back door. It never paid to advertise that she frequented anywhere much, even a pawnshop, especially since her hair made her too noticeable in a crowd.

She picked the door's lock in seconds, and slipped inside like a wraith, pulling the door silently shut behind her.

Heaviness descended on her, the weight of the back room's silence amid the shelves of valuables. She knew that soon her own stolen pretty would join them, or be reworked so that it would be harder to trace when the guard got wind of the theft.

"Who's there!" a sharp, female voice demanded as Sakura pulled away from the clinging darkness of the shadows.

"It's me, Ino-pig," Sakura replied with a laugh in her voice. "I've somethin' pretty for you."

"Do you now, Forehead," the blonde who appeared at the room's other end spoke, her tone injected with a familiar, teasing lilt. "Let's see it."

Her fingers were gentle as she accepted Sakura's proffered find.

"Forehead, as your fence," Ino said conversationally as her eyes appraised the flask, "I scout th' stolen pretties you bring back pretty oft'n, but it's been a while. Have y'found someone else?"

"Pig, y'know that's ridiculous talk," Sakura chided, crossing her arms over her chest. "I take my filched goods t' no one but you, and well you know't."

"I had to ask," the other replied, unfazed. "I know th' rules of your contract and this piece isn't enough to cover for so long a gap 'twixt healings. So what's th' other stuff you're gettin' for healings you do in between?"

Sakura's jade eyes flicked away from her fence and friend. "Don't be askin' me," she warned gently. "It's not somethin' I wish to talk of."

"Talk of talk," Ino said as she gave Sakura an infinitesimal nod of understanding, I've a letter for you." She didn't miss the way the rose-haired girl stilled. "It may ha' been important."

"The letter?" Sakura bit out, feeling an unpleasant curl of apprehension take hold in the pit of her stomach.

"Here."

She caught the envelope flung at her face and broke open the generic cream-colored wax seal on it without preamble. Inside was a folded piece of parchment sealed with the dark navy wax of the Uchiha household. Breaking that seal too, she opened up the page and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood at the two words written on a torn-off scrap inside its folds.

_Trickster's Cure_

The meaning of the words was clear.

_Uchiha Mansion, the Lord's eyesight_, echoed back at her from the depths of her mind as she remembered the Trickster's command. _You should go to him._

Sakura crumpled up the scrap of parchment; her clenched fist a nova of heat to the rest of her suddenly ice-cold body.

"Forehead?" her friend asked, cerulean eyes finally torn away from the flask to her stern-faced friend.

"I need to go, Ino," Sakura said grimly, eyes two shards of emerald ice. "I'll collect th' coin for this pretty bit later."

Ino nodded, her features set in stubborn lines as she tried to mask her worry.

"Go safe…Sakura."

The pink-haired girl nodded tightly and slipped out into the darkness, a single thought echoing in her mind, sharp with guilt.

_I should have listened…._

_

* * *

_

Chakra: magical essence

Fence: a receiver (and re-seller) of stolen goods

Magesight: Gift of the Uchiha family, it does things like see the truth, predict the future, see in the dark, etc, etc depending on the person

Mark: thief/assassin/burglar's target, Sakura also refers to her patients are marks because she steals from them too

Pretty: street cant for a stolen object of decent worth

Hehe this chapter turned out longer than expected, and took a few days more than I wanted, but it's done now! Oh, and if anyone was curious, "The Price Paid" actually doesn't refer to Sakura getting Itachi's books for payment, but rather about the price that she ends up paying for not listening to the Trickster's orders....

Please review the authoress so the happy ItaSaku muse stays happy ^^ and the next chapter gets written faster!

PS if anyone would like to beta this story... (i like having a few) let me know thanks ^^


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